I was Pro Transparent tiles, now I'm not.

I think this feature is going to be loved by some and disliked by others. I think the Start Screen could look too 'busy' with some types of backgrounds, but I'm thinking it could look great with others. As said above, the good thing is that this is completely optional, as most features should be. I'll certainly be giving it a go though.

Eh, no. I can see how a dark grey background could work with the current accent colors but the ability to choose any color just doesn't appeal to me. They should just add the ability to pick darker and lighter shades of the current accents like what you see in the multi-tasker and people tiles and that would satisfy almost everyone.

Yes yes, very nice. Make a big picture of that neon green color, and set it as background. As simple as that.
While it would be nice to have more background background (not tile bg) colors, those on AMOLED screens would still use black to conserve battery.
I'm sure there is going to be an app that will allow you to choose any color from the pallete into gallery to set it as background. I'll make it if no one else will.

Oh yes, a question: they opened the API for lockscreen, what about background? Will apps be able to change that too?

Originally Posted by Kram Sacul

Eh, no. I can see how a dark grey background could work with the current accent colors but the ability to choose any color just doesn't appeal to me. They should just add the ability to pick darker and lighter shades of the current accents like what you see in the multi-tasker and people tiles and that would satisfy almost everyone.

Initially I thought green pepper was a very nice idea to add to a burger, now I think its changing the brand identity, making it taste more like pizza.

But it is not true that WP8.1 will lose "identity" because transparent tiles. Not at all. Tiles will be there, as always. Remember WP7? Only big and medium files, now we have Small tiles and WP is the same, only better.

This is nonsense, the start screen still consists of live tiles (name another OS which consists of live tiles... yeah I didn't think so) and of cours there is a shiny glowing windows key on the front, wp is still plenty distinguishable

More importantly, people don't even know what a windows phone is no matter which colour my tiles have! They always say like "Oh that's a weird looking Android..." Bottom line is, People can't mistake a wp for Android if they don't even know what a wp is

I'm really enjoying the transparent tiles with the background. If they had gone the route of the background behind non transparent tiles, you would never fully see the background. It works on Windows 8.1 because of your monitor size and the additional negative space. On WP you don't have that extra room, and would essentially have to move tiles around just to see the background

It's one thing if the background didn't move while swiping down, it's another that it does. This feature is what wins the transparent tiles for me. Who cares if someone who is far away can't identify it? When you swipe down they will see how beautifully the background image and the tiles interact with one another.
Personally, I use an image of a very green leaf or a very red sun...Something with apparent color so that it looks just like the old tiles but it's actually a beautiful image.

The identity never worked in the first place because pigheaded devs kept creating entire tiles rather than allowing the accent colour to shine through. At least transparent tiles are encouraging devs to create transparent tiles which will work with accent colours.

Using a background picture now myself and I love it. What's fun is you can use texturized or gradient variations of your favorite theme color to jazz up the phone a lot from the toned down metro look. Much like the frosted blue glass look above. I'm personally sporting a partial Cortana (safe for work) background.

To be fair, in regards to some of the original postings here.. Even 95% of people staring at my phone from 1 foot away still don't know what my phone is. And that hasn't changed with WP 8.1.

Here in Canada WP handsets are probably represented by 0.01% of the handset marketshare. BB still dominates, along with iPhone and a zillion Galaxy S phones. The only people I know with WP are the people that I sold them to switch to. Like my parents, girlfriend and some close friends. Everyone else that's seen my WP's over the last few years usually say "What phone is that?", or "Is that an iPhone?" or "Is that Android?". I usually stick with an easy answer and just say "It's Windows." Most respond with puzzled faces and say "Oh.. hmm.". Only a true techie would recognize a Lumia 1520 or someone from the MS Store.

So in a place like Canada the color of my tiles or wallpaper would make zero difference in regards to someone recognizing my device. However, most are intrigued regardless by the color of the phone itself (yellow).